Managing and Growing an Inclusive Design Team

Management Philosophy

My philosophy around management is engagement through the intersection of bringing high value design to the business while helping designers find success and passion in their career paths.

Take a look at some of the ways that I've helped foster a collaborative and high quality design culture for current and future designers and employees at Copper.

I've broken this philosophy into 3 areas: Hiring, Culture, and Craft.

Scroll below to view case studes

Hiring 

Recruiting, Reviewing and Hiring Experience     View case study

In my past life, I think I may have been a recruiter because I love speaking with and meeting designers! I've helped source talented designers, engineers and PMs for Copper. I assess the needs of our design and PM functions, write job descriptions, work with recruiters to identify talent. I have interviewed hundreds of designers and PMs at Pivotal and Copper. Diversity and Inclusion is important to me, and identifying not only skillful designers, but designers that will bring value to the culture of our design team through a multitude of vectors and intersections. I even did research around how to write an inclusive job description!

Culture

Copper Product Design Principles     View case study

When our product went through a rebrand and our team began to grow, we began to notice that there was something missing in our design decision making process. We needed to rally around a set of values as a design team that we could utlize across our product org. These were Design Principles, which we state as a set of fundamental truths or propositions that serve as a foundation for guiding or directing design decision making. 

Design Critique Format

Myself and another Design manager paired on and developed a rich product design critique format to engage our product designers into critical dialogue around their work as well as to share information early and often. 

Copper Design Leveling

The design management team (VP of Design, and other design manager, and myself)  worked with our HR team to develop Copper's first Product Design and UX Research Design Leveling for both Individual Contributor and Manager paths.

Copper Camp Offsite

Planned and organized our first ever Design Offsite, Camp Copper! We did this in a short time frame and under a $1000 and created a space for 14 designers across brand and product to hang out, share memories, and build camaraderie! We also learned the art of throwing an ax!

Copper Design All Hands

Helped establish our first and now monthly Design All Hands. Created a space for designers across Product and Brand to share and demo their work as well as celebrate achievements.

Craft

Copper Practice Guide     View case study

Since I had run a lot of training workshops around discovery research and various design methods and techniques, I had created a lot of content. Our ICs also started to develop new methods and techniques, so I developed a product practice guide to capture knowledge and create a shared space for us to utilize across the Product and Design Org. 

Workshops and Facilitations

I've taught and brought in several workshops around conducting proper research techniques through all phases of the product development lifecycle with people across the product, leadership and sales organization. I've conducted numerous facilitated and participatory activities to align stakeholders on company objectives.

Design Playbook

Designed a Playbook was created to provide new designers, as well as new employees, an understanding of the product design team at Copper. The playbook provides descriptions of various roles across the Product org and Copper as a whole, as well as various tools, and methodologies that is used in the Product Development Lifecycle. This was the precursor to the product Practice Guide. 

UX Research Initiatives

Not only did I hire our first UX Research Coordinator, but I helped develop a practice around designers shifting from a tactical skillset to a strategic one. This led to developing user personas, customer and industry segmentations, as well as service blueprints for our product.